dictate

1. 1.

   an authoritative rule

   Broaderrule
2. 2.

   a guiding principle

   “the dictates of reason”

   Broaderprinciple

Other forms of dictate

plural

dictates·

past tense

dictated·

present participle

dictating·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about dictate

What does dictate mean?

dictate means "issue commands or orders for". That is the primary sense; the word has 5 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in dictate?

dictate has 2 syllables: dic-tate. The stress falls on "tate". In IPA it is /dɪkˈteɪt/.

What is another word for dictate?

Close synonyms include order, prescribe. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is dictate a common word?

dictate is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.

What rhymes with dictate?

29 words rhyme with dictate. Rhymes are matched on the phonemes from the last stressed vowel onward, which is the definition a reader has in their head.